At Advanced Woodie Camp, kids don't just learn hunting, they do it

ASHBY, Minn. -- The pheasant pops up just high enough to escape the jaws of Nyah, the black lab that flushed it.

But it can't escape the shot of Sam Stanisich, 15, of Eveleth, who bangs off a round from his 12-gauge, and the bird thumps into the wet bluestem grass, leaving a streak of feathers in the air. It's Stanisich's first pheasant, but there's no celebration just yet.

"SAFETIES ON!" yells Tony Rondeau, a retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service worker, with the bark of a drill sergeant. Rondeau glances down the line of four hunters, all Stanisich's age, to ensure barrels are skyward and fingers are off triggers.

Tony Rondeau, left, snatches a ring-necked pheasant from his dog, Nyah, while Sam Stanisich of Eveleth, who shot the bird, prepares to take it. Rondeau, a retired biologist from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, acts as a hunting mentor at the Minnesota Waterfowl Association's Advanced Woodie Camp.
(Pioneer Press: Dave Orrick)

Nyah has returned with the bird, which soon finds the game pouch in Stanisich's vest.

"OK. Let's go!" Rondeau shouts, and the hunt resumes.

This is hunting camp, but not simply the hunting camp where relatives and friends swap stories and chores between gunning for their quarry. More like a summer camp for hunting, except in the fall, so the kids can really hunt.

Held last month at the Viking Valley Hunt Club, this was the Minnesota Waterfowl Association's Advanced Woodie Camp. It's a graduate degree, if you will, for a select few of those who matriculate from the MWA's Woodie Camp, which has been held each summer since 1989.

At Woodie Camp, campers ages 13 to 15 learn wildlife and hunting skills with a heavy emphasis on waterfowling -- and safety -- from mentors.

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Farm-raised ducks are brought in to give campers a hands-on lesson in dressing the birds, but much of the instruction is done in classroom settings.

Last year, MWA, with help from a host of other sponsors, first offered Advanced Woodie Camp, where the lessons could be put to practice in the field. No longer "campers," the youth here are "hunters," both in title and practice. And the place has more the feel of a hunting camp than a summer camp.

Between hunts, inside the lodge, 13 young hunters -- 11 boys and two girls -- and a half-dozen mentors lounged in clusters. Some watched football, others talked duck tactics and folk songs while trading an acoustic guitar back and forth. It might as well have been an assemblage of uncles and cousins.

Decks of cards were shuffled and dealt, and the place echoed with quacks as mentors offered advice on cleaning reeds and comeback calls. Sometimes the advice went the other way; some of these kids can make a rolling feed call better than all but accomplished adult callers.

After spending a few days with them, I came to realize these guys and gals aren't just the future generation of waterfowlers, they'll be the future leaders of the conservation and hunting community.

"We've had graduates of Woodie Camp that have gone on to get Ph.D.'s in wildlife biology," said Brad Nylin, executive director of MWA. "Some have gone into waterfowl research, and some have told me that Woodie Camp was the thing that flipped the switch. Hearing things like that is what makes it all worth it."

The afternoon hunt in the pheasant field provided a chance to stretch the legs and shoot some birds, after the morning duck hunt under ducky weather (wind and rain) but sparse skies over Viking Valley's numerous lakes. It yielded about half a dozen birds but twice as many lessons.

Perhaps the most poignant lesson came when the group reconvened for lunch, and Rondeau called the crowd to order.

Bryan Kal-Van Rees of Hastings peers over duck decoys from a blind on one of the many lakes at Viking Valley Hunt Club near Ashby during the Minnesota Waterfowl Association's Advanced Woodie Camp.
(Pioneer Press: Dave Orrick)

"We had a mistake out there today," he announced, holding up a pied-billed grebe, a migratory waterbird that hangs around ducks but can't be hunted. A mixed group of redheads and coots -- and apparently at least one grebe -- had paddled into decoys and gotten up, and one of the youths had shot the grebe. "So what do we do now?" Rondeau asked of the group.

"Call it in," was the reluctant but unanimous chorus in response.

Following a discussion and lecture via speakerphone with the local conservation officer, the shooter was issued a warning -- an action sometimes taken by a game warden who believes an honest mistake was made.

Like at any duck camp, many of the lessons were born out of comedy, if not farce.

One crew learned the mechanics of freeing (or unsuccessfully trying to free) a trailer stuck in the mud.

Another group got a lesson in what happens when you drop a flotilla of decoys with 8 feet of anchor line in 10 feet of water, in the dark, with the wind blowing. That tale led to some pre-dawn frustration, but the kids and mentor who related it to me were all chuckles.

The camper-hunters hailed from all over the state, from the metro to Fairmont. I talked to each of them, and each told me he or she had a blast. And then they told their parents the same thing.

"We drove a long way from Eveleth, but my gosh, it was totally worth it to see how much Sam loved it," said Janelle Stanisich, Sam's mother, after the camp was over. "He wants to do it again next year."